The King and I - Act 1

[@kennethwayne6857]

I was very lucky to secure a ticket in one of the front rows of the orchestra for the very final performance of this. I believe it was early summer 1985 and I was 19. Because it was Mr. Brynner's farewell performance, these tickets were raised to the exorbitant sum of $75!! A short number of months later of course, he was gone and this has remained one of my most magnificent theatrical memories which I can now relive, thanks to you. It is EXACTLY as I remember! Thanks so much!!

[@lilgiggler35]

I was privileged to see one of these performances in February, 1984 in Baltimore, MD. It was wonderful and I was so glad I got the chance to watch it.

[@blessOTMA]

I love every minute of this. Thank you to for uploading and a big thank you to the one who recorded it! Priceless!!!

[@allanfisch]

I saw this tour, in Los Angeles. And I'm so glad I did as he'd be gone a year later. I too noticed how quick the tempos of the songs were during the show.

[@julaki21]

Amazing recording of the best show ever seen in my life. 1984 in Fort Lauderdale Florida. Would love to see more

[@caitlinjane92]

My aunt told me that she got to see Yul Brynner on the stage in "The King and I." Now by watching this, I can get a better idea of what her experience was like.

[@colonialradio1]

How on earth did they film this with a 1984 video camera - those were hardly small and compact! Must have been on constant usher look-out! Glad they did though - it's a great historical record of the great Yul Brynner on stage. And what a curtain call!!!

[@mikepthekangaroo7596]

I saw Yule Brenner in The King and I in 1980 in Boston. Great performance!

[@mariacatherine229]

Anna is sung by Mary Beth Piel who had trained as an opera singer, won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition and had been singing at the Met and other opera houses for about 15 years (I think) when she was cast in this, her first musical theater role. She was nominated for a Tony for it and deservedly so.

[@kristinehatkinson7323]

So off-key... OUCH.

[@kayleyluczywo8805]

How amazing is it that Yul Brynner was in the Anastasia movie which inspired the musical, and now Mary Beth Peil has originated the role of the Dowager Empress?? That’s just amazing to me

[@kennethwayne6857]

I believe there was an earlier Anastasia musical (from the '60's) in which she played the title character. Don't quote me on that, I'll have to look it up.

[@LaPimpernelle]

I swear Yul would have had the recorder's (your?) head if he knew they were filming, but I'm so glad they (you?) did! Why is everything so uptempo, though? They are racing through this.

[@SCL500_NYC]

I was one of the Crown Princes. I was 7 years old

[@sloanpeters]

This from the 1984 National tour, just before Yul's last Broadway revival in 1985.

[@mkaplan1383]

Please don't let KZbin throw you in Copyright Jail and take away this video. This is the only one with Yul's final performance.

[@showtunestarpower]

How wonderful it is to have a complete record of Yul Brynner onstage performance of THE KING AND I. Also, the lady play Anna is magical. Who is she? Is this the London production? Thank you so much for posting.

[@nathanswanson1040]

Mary Beth Peil. She was Tony nominated for this role.

[@para321mt]

PL

[@kennethwayne6857]

@@nathanswanson1040 Nominated for best actress in a featured role. That year there were simply not enough performances by actors or actresses in leading roles in musicals that they deemed worthy of Tony consideration, so they decided not to bother with the leading category. A strange phenomena in Tony history.

[@scapegoat321]

Seems like a great production of sets and talent. I hope they had someone shoot a better copy. :)~

[@thetonyrusso]

What year is this? Magnificent performance!

[@PrincesRoadBourneEnd]

Oh Dear Master Nathsters! I hope you had a good experience playing Louis Leonowens in your amateur production. You are an amateur I hope? No one is going to hold too critically what a young boy says which to others seems gauche, clumsy or - worse - cruel. But it would be unfortunate if a professional did it, however youthful. Nathsters, your performance may well have been better, but that's best left for others to judge. If the National Tour Louis was miscast for his talents, then in a young performer that is surely the fault of the Director. It is unlikely that the boy was not giving of his best.I am so glad this 1984 production-bootleg has surfaced on KZbin. My association with the musical was also playing Louis, but now soooo long ago. In 1953 the show came to London's West End with the performances of Valerie Hobson and Herbert Lom launching that first British production to brighten a smoggy, drab London not yet recovered from the war. My recollections of that production, Drury Lane, the Rodgers and Hammerstein auditions and the ghosts can be found in "Love, Life and Moving Pictures" on Amazon. More at www.lovelifeandmovingpictures.comTerence Sharkey

[@MyChewbacca]

The King & Mother Florrick!

[@mraaronmallory]

Where is the better copy? Minister Donna C Eckhardt Founder of Effectual Fervent Prayer Ministry 🙏.

[@weekdaycycling]

Whenever she's afraid she will sing My Favorite Thing.

[@come2ursenses882]

This kinda scares me watching it at night...

[@mxcnkmimi5133]

หาเจอละเเบบเต็มเรื่อง

[@bblegacy]

It's too bad the Overture is so severely cut and hacked up. Many tempos throughout are questionable, if not wrong, too. For the most part, faster things are mostly too fast and slower things are taken too slowly. Granted, King and I IS a long show.... it comes in right up close to three hours, if not slightly over by about 5-10 minutes when it's done well with NOTHING CUT. But of course, all the unions from performers to musicians to stagehands go on OT at three hours, and these days you're lucky if an audience can sit still for more than two anyway. The reality is we're dealing with a packaged commercial commodity called entertainment, so just don't call it art. Just ask anyone who calls themself a Producer in this day and age. Apart from that, singers and especially Conductors need to set aside their egos and get inside the heads of the original composers' intentions, and there is no shortage of cast albums made in their life-times for so many so called "artists" these days to be ignorant of these basic musical matters. And Producers need to know what they are getting involved with before they go at a production with an axe just to slash time off the clock. You don't have to be "in the know" that when the stopwatch rules and bottom line dollars taken as profit by investors are more important than what you're trying to do in the first place, artistic merit suffers. K&I has been demonstrated to stand on its own when done right, so why the need for wasting all the time and expense to just go 90% with none of the polish and care of what the creators intended? Oh I forgot. Make money and give the crowd something barely good enough. After all they don't know the difference, right?

[@MTknitter22]

I agree with all you said

[@michaelisennock8391]

You make a valid point but don't forget you Brynner died in 1985 of cancer and he was not well throughout most of this production I believe a lot of it was cut so that he could just get through it.

[@michaelisennock8391]

Yul... may you rest in peace and I saw this production and it was all that you said in many ways but a legend was on stage.

[@haledork]

That hoop skirt is terrible! You can see the hoop! Is this Broadway?

[@amyclarke41]

ok☺

[@yahoo8804]

What year is this?

[@musicallove6785]

1984

[@LyonsKevin]

!

[@guydupays8558]

Horrible film! a pity and a shame

[@christianchalifour243]

some people just don't get it! This is NOT a film! This is a video (albeit undercover and illegal) of something we can never see again... a live performance of Yul Brynner in his greatest role, from the 1984 pre-broadway tour, the year before he passed away in 1985. I totally thank whoever it was who had the nerve to capture this!

[@christianchalifour243]

I'll never forget it when I saw that 1984 tour at the Pantages in Hollywood. It was a Saturday matinee, and some parents had obviously dropped off their kids unattended, and three boys were yacking away and being noisy in the 8th row of the orchestra during the quiet scene in Act 1 where the King sends for Anna in the middle of the night to discuss Moses, etc Finally, the kids were being so disruptive, that Yul Brynner took control of the disruptive, and stepped forward to the edge of the stage, pointed a scolding finger out to the three boys in the audience, and without dropping his character for a second, simply said "Is it that you have something to say? For if so, I wish that you would say it, for I can hear YOU better than I can hear me!" There was a burst of applause, and he then turned upstage to resume his conversation with Anna. ... And the three boys were not there after intermission!

[@blessOTMA]

@@christianchalifour243 Wonderful story! Imagine Yul's response to the cell phones that terrorized performances later! 😂

[@kennethwayne6857]

@@blessOTMA I have no doubt he would have been more terrifying than Patti LuPone (if such a thing is possible).

[@blessOTMA]

😂